Northerners should be paid lower unemployment benefits and receive a less generous minimum wage than people in the south, according to a study.

Londoners should get a minimum wage of £6.90 an hour, compared with the current rate of £5.35.
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By contrast, the minimum wage for workers in the north-east should be slashed by 57p an hour to just £4.78, the think tank's study claims. Substantial cuts should also be made to the minimum wage in Yorkshire (down to £4.95 an hour), Northern Ireland (£4.80) and Wales (£4.84), it suggests.

"If you are in London benefits are a very poor substitute for work. If you are in the north-east benefits are a very good substitute for work - so you tend to get far more people on benefits up there."

More productive southerners my arse.
In response to population and accessibility of services, house prices go up. in response to house prices, wages go up. In response to wages, commodity prices go up, in response to commodity prices, the cost of living goes up, but the population and accessibility stays the same.

The reason that Benefits go so much farther in the north is because everywhere outside london doesn't have this ridiculous compulsion to live - or work - as close to the city as possible, people don't consider extortionate taxes/charges/fees, part of the acceptable price of living there.

If the minimum wage in areas outside london is lowered, it might go some way towards harmonising the percentage of wages that get spent on living expenses. The less "everyone else" is given to spend, the closer to skint londoners they become.

You are a t**t, for so many reasons. Grow up and then come back and talk.

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I take it your not from London then Jim?

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Very technically, I am. And I still think the place is a hole.
The well off people there are so much more "well off" than everyone else that to all intents and purposes, they are not real people and cannot be relied on as examples of homo sapiens.

Working in London wouldn't be feasible if it were not for London Transport. For those that don't know, this refers to the cattle trucks and global-warming, carcinogenic red things that prevent traffic flow.

London Transport is a group of PRIVATE companies that enjoy not only privileges not afforded to other private modes of transport (exclusive road lanes and the like) but is also subsidised financially. Now who pays for these subsidies? Londoners? No. It's a subsidy paid by national government, i.e. contributed to by every tax payer in Britain.

Excluding property (which is largely owned by foreigners and rented or leased to residents) what goods and services cost more in London than elsewhere? None. To a large extent, they are cheaper in the capital.

Consider petrol stations. One argument for the high cost of fuel (discounting taxation) is the cost of operating the forecourt. London land prices are high, therefore the pump price should reflect this. Do you see this? No. With the exception of the rip-off place in Park Lane, pump prices are similar, if not cheaper, than elsewhere in the country. How can this be? Obvious, the rest of the country is subsidising London.

I could rant about the tourist industry, national funds being used to support tourist income to London, but little elsewhere.

I'd also like to know why I'm paying a levy that funds the Thames Barrier when I live 40 miles away and 140 metres above the Thames.

The fact is, London Weighting should be scrapped, along with national subsidies to London, and the funds that result should be spread amongst the taxpayers of the outlying areas who have been subsidising these wasters for far too long!

NO to NATIONAL funding of the LONDON Olympics!

And can we have the money back from the LONDON Millennium celebrations please?

You get on your high horse if someone should be negative towards the yanks and upset the american/british relationship, yet here you are instigating and fueling a national divide with another of your cut and paste specials.

In case you hadn't noticed this is a MILITARY based website; Although soldiers may delight in taking the pi$$ out of regional differences we are all of the same Army and as such the way you have posted in this case is not appropriate.

I do appreciate that this is difficult for someone like you with no apparent military service, to comprehend, so take a hint and feck off, you cretin.

Young John remembers the days when the Narff was full of Industry, Heavy Industry not ya namby pamby IT stuff.
But that has all gone and a way of life went with it.
Blur did so much to change Britian, Virtual Independance for the Jocks and Taffs. Now perhaps he wants to split England into many minor entities.
Might find it easier to get it into his EU of which he does not want to be the First President of.
john
Well he said he doesn't want ta be. Lieing Git.

How of you been Princess? popped over the Canadian border yet to 'sort out the yanks'?

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Have you popped into the real world lately to understand life? Why don't you try getting some military experience under your belt.

Oh and on this subject you have quite conveniently omitted the demographics, if you include such things as funding for immigrants (mainly in the south) and the massive cost of policing you'll find that all this extra dosh that the south produces is actually spent locally.

I agree that Northerners get far more than they are worth. Just look at Newcastle for the evidence. They should cut thier benefits. There are far too many of them who have grown up with the expectations that they are 'entitled' and that the rest of the country 'owes' them.